Urso Memories

Wednesday

Aug 8, 2012 at 12:01 AMAug 8, 2012 at 7:52 PM

It was barely a year ago that Ben Speas spent his first extended period of time with Kirk Urso. On August 1, 2011, Speas reported to North Carolina to kick off his first season with the Tar Heels and was assigned a temporary hotel room. But when he arrived, Speas found that he had been upgraded – to Urso's attic room he shared with another player.

It was barely a year ago that Ben Speas spent his first extended period of time with Kirk Urso. On August 1, 2011, Speas reported to North Carolina to kick off his first season with the Tar Heels and was assigned a temporary hotel room. But when he arrived, Speas found that he had been upgraded – to Urso's attic room he shared with another player.

“Kirk let me stay there,” an emotional Speas said after today’s training session at Obetz, just the second since Urso passed away suddenly early Sunday morning. “He wanted to get to know me … and I wanted to stay with him, too. He was my captain. I wanted to be with my captain and get to know him before the season.”

During those early days in Chapel Hill, Speas said Urso gave him food and even lent him clothing until he was fully unpacked at a campus residence hall. Once Speas moved on campus, Urso met him and other teammates nightly for dinner.

It was a hands-on approach that extended to the field as well. When the Tar Heels suffered losses to Virginia Tech and Davidson, Speas said it was Urso who got things back on track.

“Kirk took the team during that time and got us out of it,” Speas said. “In any game, we always knew to go to Kirk for vocal leadership and what we needed to do.”

Months later, the Tar Heels were national champions and images of a grinning Urso holding the trophy will last forever. And although both players were rookies with the Crew this season, the two suffered injuries at different times that kept them from actually suiting up together for regular-season games.

The same cannot be said for fellow rookie Ethan Finlay, Urso’s roommate. Fifteen minutes into the season opener at Colorado, both were in the lineup – Urso as a starter, Finlay as a substitution for an injured Dilly Duka.

As it turns out, Finlay and Urso played together with the Region II ODP team at age 15. Not surprisingly, Urso was a team captain then, too.

“We traveled to Barcelona together,” Finlay said. “We played Real Madrid when we were 14 or 15. I got pulled down on a PK and he finished it. There’s a picture of our embrace. That was Kirk. He wanted that pressure. Not many 15-year-olds did. I admired that.”

While on the club, Urso earned a nickname from the coaching staff.

“He was such a big kid,” Finlay said. “He was built like a horse. One of our coaches said he was a stallion with how he pranced around the field and worked so hard. Even from then, to look up to a kid when you’re the same age as him and say, ‘What a great kid, what a great guy, what a leader’ … you don’t have that many 15-year-olds. That’s what Kirk was about. His maturity level was so high.”& lt; /p>

Since the 911 call made concerning Urso was released yesterday, there is one thing I want to try and clear up a little bit.

On the call made by a police officer, the caller asks for help with “a very drunk person who fell down and now is unconscious.” This in no way should be misconstrued as any sort of definitive proof that Urso was drunk or had been drinking the night he died. As an officer reacting to a situation a late-night situation at a bar, I can understand why those words were chosen to describe the situation.

Privately, I’ve had several conversations with people close to Urso who have said he did not have any sort of drinking problem and it grieves them to hear speculation that alcohol caused his death.

We will not have the answers until the toxicology report is released in 4-6 weeks, so for now I feel it is unfair to speculate on what caused his passing.

Also: Injured left back Nemanja Vukovic was jogging laps as he works to recover from an ankle injury suffered in the team's exhibition match against Stoke City.

ajardy@dispatch.com @AdamJardy

Never miss a story

Choose the plan that's right for you.
Digital access or digital and print delivery.